Hedge fund manager John Paulson is famous for short-selling subprime mortgages in 2007. He made over $3 billion in that year as the result of his move on the market.

 On July 18 here is what he said at the CNBC Delivering Alpha Conference:

"I think the best thing for an individual investor, if they don't own a home, is to buy a home and if they own a home and have some extra cash or extra availability its not a bad idea to think about owning a second-home as well."

The day before he also said “buying a home is the single best investment anyone can make”.

These statements should be a stunning wake up call to all potential buyers. Inventories and interest rates are near record lows demand and prices have been climbing if you may want to take stock in this investment legions’ sentiment.

If you had been thinking about buying real estate, this may be the moment you have waiting for.  Click Here to see properties for sale on the NW Florida Gulf Coast.

Pensacola and its spectacular beaches have long been a getaway for residents of Houston and Nashville. Southwest Airlines announced Monday it will now offer nonstop flights from to Pensacola International Airport.

Many families in these cities own beach properties or vacation in the Pensacola area and will now benefit from the low cost / express flights to Pensacola.

The current terminal was expanded in 2011 at a cost of $35 million and in November of that year, Pensacola mayor Ashton Hayward announced that the airport would change its name to Pensacola International Airport from Pensacola Gulf Coast Regional Airport.

In April of this year The Hyatt Place Pensacola International Airport Hotel opened offering travelers great accommodations on the airport campus.

If you have been actively watching the Perdido Key condominium sales over the past few years you have probably noticed the real estate market here has substantially changed.

How has the condo market changed? To begin with, the available inventory, the number of condos for sale in any given month, has decreased by 72% since it peaked in 2006! If that was not enough, the number of average monthly condo sales has been increasing since the 2006-2007 time frame too.

(The blue data is number of monthly sales while the red is the amount of available condo units)

How has this affected buyers and sellers? On the buyer side, there are more buyers with fewer available condos from which to choose. The result is those properties that are correctly priced to the market sell quickly and many times with multiple offers.

Sellers are now starting to be less flexible on price, that is, they are less willing to negotiate much below list price. Some buyers get very frustrated since they still think this is a buyer’s market when is not.

There no new condos built here since 2006 and there are no plans at this time to build more. With the real estate sales improving across the region there every reason to think this trend will continue as the market conditions shift more to the seller side.

So, what do you do if you are a buyer? Be prepared to act quickly if you find a condo you like. Those buyers that have a “wait and see” approach will only be disappointed by what the improving market does to pricing and availability. This is a great opportunity for buyers that understand the current market. Most importantly, working with a real estate agent that knows this market is essential so you can see what is available here and what represents a good value.

The City of Gulf Breeze purchased the Tiger Point Golf Course and Country Club in December 2012.

The primary reason for this Gulf Breeze acquisition was address a need to expand their sewerage treatment capacity. While this might sound strange at first one aspect of sewerage treatment is, what do you do with the treated water? Many communities apply this treated water to areas on golf courses through sprinklers. This is a cost effective and ecological solution to the problem.

The benefit to the Tiger Point Golf community is that the City of Gulf Breeze committed to refurbish the back nine holes and perform addition maintenance and improvements. Quickly the City began work on the nine holes, as well as, clearing brush from the fence line, repairing restrooms, improving waterways, re-sanding traps, fixing the irrigation system and restoring a storm shelter.

This new arrangement is a great mutual benefit to both Gulf Breeze and the residents of Tiger point. The Golf Course is at the center of this community and maintaining it is key to maintaining the value of Tiger Point homes surrounding it.

People that have bought or sold real estate or considered buying or selling real estate on Pensacola Beach over the past ten years understand how the market has changed.

The condo market in particular has changed markedly.  Factors in this include the building boom in the early and mid 2000’s, two hurricanes,  the credit boom and bust, the economic down turn and the BP Horizon oil release. Wow, that’s a lot of events in ten years. All of the occurrences worked to drive down prices.

Well thing on Pensacola Beach have been pretty calm and quiet for the past couple years, a welcome respite after all that. The condo market here bottomed out in 2011 and prices appear to be on the rise.

So, why are prices now on the rise? Inventory, or better stated, there are significantly fewer number of condos for sale. Realtors refer to inventory as the number of active condo listings available and on Pensacola Beach the inventory has decreased dramatically.  This is classic case of supply and demand, the supple is low and the demand is rising, so prices begin to rise.

According to the Pensacola Association of Realtors MLS statistics, the number of condos for sale here peaked in September 2007 at 349 units, the number in November 2012 was 111 units, 68% fewer units! Inventory is back to 2005 levels and still falling.

Average Monthly Sold Prices seem to have hit a low in 2010-2011 near $325,000 and in November 2012 the average price was almost $478,000.

The economy is slowly improving and more people that have put off buying are looking to buy at bargain prices. The only problem is, most of the best bargains are gone and improving real estate conditions are make this more of a “sellers market”.

Availability of capital has improved for those beach buyers.  There are still many cash buyers but purchases using credit have been on the rise.

In conclusion the market here is at the early stages of a seller’s market.  If you are interested in purchasing a condominium on Pensacola Beach now is the time.  The availability and reasonable prices you see right now will not last forever.

Hurricane Isaac was at worst a slight inconvenience in our area but other Gulf Coast States were not a lucky; Louisiana being most notable.

Here on Pensacola Beach the road to Fort Pickens is temporarily closed for sand cleanup. During the storm sand and water covered the road leaving the National Park Service a job to clean things up for park visitors. The road is expected to reopen September 7th.

Many people that buy homes and condos on Pensacola Beach have primary residence in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. We have had many of these real estate customers reschedule or cancel planned trips to come in town to look at properties because of damage done to their homes and/or businesses or those of their friends and relatives.

While Isaac was only a category 1 hurricane, it was a big storm that moved very slowly as it approached the coast.  This created more problems that what you would normally expect.

We wish everyone well that was affected by this storm and hope recovery happens quickly.

In three years the Destin months of inventory has dramatically dropped by 50 percent to 13.2 months. This is back to 1999/2000 levels which we consider to be a normal market.

This is further evidence that the Destin real estate market has substantially improved and is very near recovery to a “normal” market. The best days for extraordinary deals may soon be behind us.

The inventory of unsold Pensacola homes is continuing to shrink as seen in the months of inventory chart below:

At 11.8 months, this is the fewest months of inventory of homes in March since 2006. This is further proof of the improving real estate market in Pensacola, Florida.

Other March data will be release next week for residential number of sales, average price sold and total inventory (homes, condos and townhomes).

As the housing markets across the country begin or continue to improve some will recover faster than others. As the saying goes “all real estate is local”.

 Over the past few months we have seen a dramatic increase in the abuse of unoccupied homes in Pensacola.  Most of these vacant homes are either for sale with a brokerage or are bank owned properties (i.e. foreclosure).

There was a time not long ago, when homes that were for sale and not occupied were for the most part safe. That is not true any longer. Vacant homes need to be carefully monitored and maintained to avoid people from gaining illegal entry. We used to hear of the occasional vagrant squatting in vacant homes but now we are seeing people moving in that are under the belief that they have a legitimate lease.  Many of these people are paying rent to persons that have no legitimate claim to the property!

We have been contacted by potential renters that have seen a home for rent online.   After driving by to check out the house and seeing our “For Sale” in the yard they subsequently contacted us for more information. The problem is the house is not legitimately for rent, it’s for sale and the sellers have no idea someone is trying to rent it.

We have been told by potential renters they saw the property listed for rent on Craig’s list. Apparently people list these vacant homes for rent online and occasionally do rent them to unsuspecting tenants.

The FBI investigated this scam last year and surmised: “If you are using Craigslist to find rental property, please make sure that you are in contact with a real person in real life. If a deal seems too good to be true and the person only stays in contact on the internet, odds are that you and your money could be in peril.”

If you are selling an unoccupied home; beware, Find a real estate brokerage that will remain vigilant and help protect your real estate investment.  Many “MLS Only” brokerages operate from a central location that can be located on the other side of the state thereby lacking the ability to service local listings.  It pays to know who you are working with.